Less Is More

Audio By Carbonatix

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Less is more.” This is true more than we may initially think in our marriage and family life. Right now, I’m learning that it’s true in my marriage. I don’t mean that I should do less to show Jane that I love her or that I should contribute less to the care and guidance of our family and marriage. Rather, I mean that when it comes time to address an area of conflict or frustration in the relationship, I am working on saying less.

I don’t withdraw or withhold—I say what I need to say and then let the conversation end there. That’s growth for me because it’s easy for me to over-talk. When we’re having a conversation about an issue, my natural tendency is to do all I can to make sure that I’m fully understood. That usually means that I overexplain and wear my point out completely. In my attempts to be fully understood, I’m doing things that work against that goal.

What I’m learning recently is that I can often make my points in a much briefer way. When I do that, I find that she understands what I’m saying just as much as she does when I keep talking about it for a longer period of time. Also, when I say what I need to say and then stop before I pile on from different angles and with different analogies, she doesn’t feel exhausted or frustrated from feeling like I just verbally dumped all of my frustrations on her.

When I take this same “less is more” approach with my kids and grandkids, I find that it’s surprisingly effective with them. Of course, the grandkids are likely to ask follow-up questions. (They range in age from months-old to 12, so sometimes the questions are related to what I was saying and other times they’re not.) However, I’ve found that when I make my point and then stop, my words seem to “land” in a more meaningful way—which is ironic because that’s what I was hoping the effect would be when I was overexplaining my point and hammering away at it from different angles and with different examples.

Much to my surprise, I’m finding that when it comes to communicating, less is often more. That when I say what I need to say simply and quickly, it’s often met with agreement rather than defensiveness or frustration. It turns out I may have been creating some of that defensiveness and frustration by the way that I was bringing up the issues that I wanted to talk about!